Spring Break
by magewriter
Summary: This is actually what happened to me and my dad from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday morning, except that we didn't bring my boyfriend along, so we didn't have three people. From the point of view of Lili, as if it wasn't already weird enough.
1. It'll Be Fun

Spring Break

By Magewriter

Chapter 1: It'll Be Fun

I guess it's kind of a sequel to Rescue, but you don't have to know the first story to understand this. I just got back from camping with my dad, and except for the fact that this has three people instead of two, this is what happened.

Honestly, though, if you were going to get a maximum of seven days, and you would have to pay for airfare, would you go back to a gypsy caravan to see your family if you'd already seen them at Winter Break? I wouldn't, especially if my boyfriend (or in Raz's case, girlfriend) asked me to go camping.

From the point of view of Lili, if it wasn't weird enough already.

Sorry I didn't have a disclaimer for awhile. I don't own Psychonauts. That's all I think I need for this chapter.

Spring break. Raz had no plans. It was almost impossible to locate the caravan in enough time to be back by the end of break.

Lili, however, had plans that she was willing to share with Raz.

She'd even asked her dad.

So, one day after classes were over, she went to his room. He was a Psychonaut, so he had a whole room to himself. She was a Psycadet, so she had a roommate.

"Oh! Hi, Lili! I wasn't expecting you." Duh. They hadn't had a conversation before she'd knocked.

"I knew that. Do you have any plans for spring break?" Why would she have to knock if he'd been expecting her?

"No. I'm just gonna stay here and… you know… hang out. I don't have anything better to do." Wow. That sounded boring.

"Do you usually celebrate Easter, Raz?" That was the important question.

"Not usually. Why?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to go camping with me and my dad over break."

"Uh… what does Easter have to do with that?"

"Well, it's Christian, see, and my mom's Jewish, and my dad's an atheist, and I kind of am, too, so we don't celebrate Easter. Did you know that it's the only religious holiday where the schools put up little signs for it in the cafeteria? It's annoying."

"Well, I don't think it's really that religious anymore. Usually it's just people dying eggs and looking for them in the morning. And with all the bunny-related events I've been through recently, I don't want anything to do with the Easter Bunny. We just didn't celebrate it because… well… where would my parents hide the eggs?"

"Oh yeah, huh? Well, do you want to go camping with me and my dad over break?"

"I don't have any other plans. What kind of camping?"

"We're going up on a mountain in my dad's car, pitching a tent in an area where many, many people have pitched theirs before, and stashing our stuff in the car. We might even go back home to get supplies if we forget too much stuff." She knew she wasn't making it sound exciting.

"Oh. You don't sound too excited."

"I never am before we get there. Then we get there, pitch the tent, set up, do some camp cooking, go hiking, rock climbing, and I'm hyped up." She smiled.

"So, what's the catch?" He knew her too well.

"We aren't using any psychic abilities. If you see something cool, you can't even use the little bouncy-ball thingy you used at camp. It'll be three days without any psychic powers. And, we're going to hike up from Juniper camp to the Summit." She smiled even wider.

"Sure! I think I've been using my mental powers too much here."

"Yeah. They should tell you how addictive levitation is when they teach it to you."

"And other stuff. Like telekinesis. I think it'll be good for me to stop with my psychic abilities for a couple days." He smiled. He was so cute when he smiled… Boy-type-cute, of course. Not young-animal-type-cute.

"Okay. I'll tell my dad. You'll have to bring some of your own stuff, but we've got most of the things you'll need. Like, we have mats to help stay warm, and those "mummy" sleeping bags, and paper plates and stuff. But if you've ever tried to make hot coco with a plastic spoon… you should bring your own silverware, meaning one fork, one spoon, and one knife, like a blunt knife, and your own plastic cup. Do you have any food allergies?"

"Uh, no."

"Good. And on the second day, because we're going up there in the afternoon and setting up and eating dinner, then we're staying there for a day, and then the next morning we're packing up and driving home, so on the second day, we're hiking up to the summit, so you should pack a sandwich. We'll be keeping it in the cooler."

"You've been planning this for a long time, haven't you?"

"No. I just talked with dad last night."

"Oh."

"It only takes a couple hours to figure out what you're gonna be doing for camping. Then it takes a couple minutes to pack, unless you're snow camping, which we aren't, then you have to check that you packed everything, but if you use detangler on your hair, even though you probably don't, I'm bringing that, and… oh, yeah, you should probably bring two pairs of shoes. Or rain boots. Or snow boots. Waterproof stuff. Like, a rain jacket, rain pants… I'll give you a list later. So… you wanna talk for awhile?" Wow. It took a long time to explain camping.

"Sure. And I know how to pack for snow."

"Yeah, but it might not snow. That's the point. It's just past the snowy season. We aren't even going to be anywhere near the summit." Dumb boys… why was it always boys that were so dumb. Sports are nice, but what was up with cars? Who's going to look at your car and say, "That's a cool person because they drive a nice car"? Same with painting your nails. Hair can go too far, too. She noticed that Raz was talking.

"And I think I can – Are you listening to me?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be, dorkface?"

"You looked kind of… zoned out."

"Whatever. Say… what do you think of Linda and Sam, like, dating?"

"Which Linda and which Sam?"

"Linda the Giant Hulking Lungfish of Lake Oblongata and Sam Pokeylope. Who else do you know named Linda who might get with a Sam?"

"I didn't know his name was Sam." Ignorant, too. Oh, well. He was her crush, not to mention he was one heck of a kisser. "I guess they'd be… okay, together."

"Newest news from Milla is, she was talking to Linda, and she had a date with Sam."

"Who, Milla!"

"No, dorkface! Eww! It was Linda!" Baaaaad images…

"Oh. Wait, why was Milla talking to Linda? I'd think they wouldn't like each other after… It's kind of hard to be friends with someone once they've regurgitated you."

"You managed it."

"Yeah, but I was also dealing with the minds of crazy people. It's completely different."

"Yeah, I guess. But girls are different than guys. Guys are weird."

"Hey! That –"

She chose that exact moment to teleport back to her room. Her roommate, who was also good at teleportation, was already gone. Or invisible. Whatever. She started packing.

Besides the fact that this actually happened (except that my boyfriend didn't come with me and my dad and nothing like the first chapter ever occurred) my mom's copy of Pride and Prejudice was left on the floor of the tent. It should be dry by tomorrow.

Sorry for the generalizations about guys. Girl stuff is dumb, too, but you have to admit that guys are also violent. Or, fake-violent. In everyday situations, girls are actually tougher, which makes sense. If women weren't tough, there would be a lot less humans alive today.

Oh, and if you read some ancient chapter of one of my old stories, you'll see that I put down that I called all of my documents "qwerty." Notice that "called" is a past-tense verb. Now, they're all called "qwertyuiop." It's even easier than "qwerty."


	2. Preparations

Chapter 2: Preparations

So, Raz and Lili are going camping, Milla is, apparently, at Whispering rock, and Linda and Sam are together. I wrote a one-chapter story about that once. It was dumb, but I think the Level 100 skit needed more because it was SO DUMB. You can see it at One of the links there should take you to the skits, where you can see that one.

Planning for camping only takes a couple of hours, unless you're in a Girl Scout troop, because then it takes about six two-hour meetings. Or maybe more. I lost track.

I noticed my last chapter didn't have a disclaimer. I'm really, REALLY sorry. I'm going to change it right after I update, but I just forgot in my rush to type up another chapter. So, I don't own Psychonauts, and I'm really sorry I forgot. For this chapter, I don't own Trader Joe's, Junction Campsite, Juniper Campsite, Sterno fuel, Power Bars, or any other random things you might find in here. I don't think I have to do a disclaimer for Mt. Diablo.

It was finally Easter Sunday morning. Not that she cared. She _did_ care, however, that today was the day they were going camping. Raz was at the house that her family stayed in most of the time, in the Bay Area in California. She, Raz and her dad were doing all the last-minute planning.

"Okay. So we're going to have pizza tonight. What are we going to have tomorrow night?" Silly Truman. Trying to keep two ten-year-olds organized.

"Maybe some Trader Joe's frozen thing. Like, the mushroom risotto or something." Really. It's good.

"Uh… Sorry if I sound dumb, but who's Trader Joe?" Raz wouldn't know Trader Joe's, huh?

"Trader Joe's is a chain of food stores. They sell good food." She was thinking of that "Slate of Bliss" chocolate when she said that.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Are you okay with that, dad?"

"Sure. I'm not sure it's going to stay frozen, though."

"It just has to stay cool. It'll work. Trust me."

"Okay." He wrote down "Trader Joe's – frozen" on the list he was making of food to bring.

"Do we want some sort of meat with that?"

"Sure. They have a meat section. Maybe we could find some sausages or something."

"Actually, I'd prefer not." She was so stupid. Of course Raz wouldn't want… even if it was half a year ago, the "Meat Circus" would probably haunt him for the rest of his life.

"Okay. So, no meat. Let me guess. Ground-up bunnies?"

"Actually, yeah. I'd prefer not to talk about it."

"Whatever. So, cross that off, dad."

"Okay. Anything else you kids can think of?"

"S'mores." The camping essential. Actually, she and a couple of her sisters and Raz had made s'mores over a little can of "Sterno" fuel. They were actually pretty good. The fuel itself was pink. Or magenta. Whatever. And there was blue fire over it. Well, they weren't trying to be healthy.

"Okay." Truman put "S'mores" on the list, with little lines connecting it to "chocolate," "graham crackers," "marshmallows," and "firewood/kindling." Good to think of every possibility.

"Okay. Anything else? We've got pineapple chunks, milk, and pizza for dinner tonight. For breakfast tomorrow, we have hot cereal, bananas, and orange juice. For lunch, we have sandwiches and dried fruit. Then, for dinner the second night, we have mushroom risotto and more dried fruit with milk. For breakfast on Tuesday, we'll be back here. Any problems with that?"

Raz and Lili both shook their heads.

"Okay. So, what do we want on the pizza? Mushrooms? Do you like pizza with mushrooms, Raz?"

"I don't care. When you live in a gypsy caravan for ten years, you kind of stop caring how good the food is, as long as it's food."

"Okay. So, a large mushroom pizza." He pulled out the Yellow Pages from a shelf, which also held school directories from many years ago.

About two minutes later, after calling about five different pizza places, he finally found a place that was open.

"Hello? I'd like to order a large mushroom pizza. Zanotto. Uh, yeah, z-a-n-n-o-t-t-o. Truman. Okay, when can I pick it up? Okay, and, uh, where are you? Okay. Thank you. Bye." Then, turning to the kids, "Let's go to Trader Joe's. Or, let's actually look here first."

After about two minutes, they had hot coco mix, bananas, jerky, Power Bars, and orange juice, along with ice in the big Styrofoam cooler to keep their sandwiches, fruit products and milk cool.

_Later_

"Okay. Is that everything?"

"Why don't you consult your magic list?"

"You can stop that now, Lili."

"Okay. Whatever."

Raz, who was obviously bored, followed them out of the store. They put some of the stuff in the cooler, stashed the rest in the paper bag that everything else was in, and set off for the pizza place.

"Mr. Zanotto? I read the paper wrong, so we accidentally made an extra large instead of a large. Is that okay?"

"Uh, I guess it can't hurt."

"Okay. We won't charge you for it, so you'll still be paying for a large. It'll be about five or six minutes, though."

"Okay. Thank you."

They headed for the nearby garden supply store, asked for firewood, found out the store didn't carry it anymore, and walked back to the pizza place.

"Okay. Here's your pizza. Sorry we mixed up your order, though."

"It's okay." He payed her.

"Okay. Thank you. Happy Easter!"

"Happy Easter."

They put the pizza in the front seat of the car since Raz and Lili were sitting in the back. They were all surprised that it fit.

Finally, they were at the campground. Some high schooler was doing stuff at Juniper for her senior project, so they were camping at the Junction campsite.

"From now on, kids, you can't use any of your psychic powers. Which site do you guys like?"

"I like the second."

"I like the second, too. It's kind of isolated, and it looks like it has a lot of space."

"Let's go up and look at it." He pulled into the parking spot marked "2."

Lili pulled on her waterproof jacket and opened the car door. It closed. "Dumb angle," she muttered under her breath. She pulled it open, held it with her foot, and let it close on Raz. Then she laughed at him.

They walked up the little path.

"This looks good. Doesn't look like there's that much plain dirt, though."

"No, there is. Over here. It'll be fine."

"Okay. Let's go back to the car and get the tent. You kids get the tarps."

It was drizzling.

The three of them set out the first tarp, which accumulated a lot of little droplets of water in a couple seconds. They looked at each other. They didn't mean to, but they all told each other telepathically, _Let's eat dinner first._

They took all the equipment back to the car, piled it in the trunk, and got back in the car. They ended up going to the summit, where they took the pizza and three folding chairs to the Observation Room. They put the pizza box on the big pedestal in the middle, unfolded the chairs, and had their cold mushroom pizza while chatting and looking out the windows, which didn't really have any purpose because, apart from the snow that was blowing onto the windows, they couldn't see anything because they were in the middle of a cloud. It was odd that it was snowing, though. It was the middle of spring, and the snowy season on the mountain was really short.

During the time that they were eating their pizza, some foreign people and a biker came in. The foreign people wanted to find a place to have coffee, and the biker was having a race with his friend. They had a third of a pizza left afterwards. Then they went back down to Junction, where the second campsite still hadn't been taken, and where it had stopped raining, and they set up the tent and waterproof stuff. Then they took all their stuff up to the tent, set up the camp stove with a new bottle of propane, and boiled some water for hot coco.

Yeah, this is the shortened version. We also spent a couple minutes getting kindling wood, then we grabbed some old newspapers, just in case. And we didn't bring anything for s'mores. But we did have a chocolate bunny the second night. It was solid Cadbury chocolate, so we didn't have that big of parts. I had the ears and my dad had the head. That was good chocolate.

Question for people who read Rescue: Should I do a story about Zig? I've got some good ideas. And it could have Whispering Rock. It cold show why people don't like psychics. I mean, I might be kind of nervous around someone who could read all my random thoughts, but it's mean not to accept people for things they can't control, which is the point of Zig.


	3. Summit

Chapter 3: Summit

Remember, these things actually happened. Well, most of them anyway. There was no third person and there were no s'mores. I just needed a substitute for a chocolate bunny. Plus, how do you use your hands to separate a solid chocolate bunny into three equal pieces? It simply can't be done.

Disclaimer: I don't own Psychonauts, Juniper camp, DDR, Super Smash Bros., or anything else.

Wow… she had woken up, like, five times last night.

Raz had given her a choice of which mat she wanted. Air mats were important because the ground is cold. If there's a layer of air between you and the ground, you're warmer. She'd taken the thicker mat, which was also the shortest mat. Her feet were touching the ground the whole night.

Her dad got up first, put on a couple extra layers, put on his shoes, and went to put some water on to boil for the instant oatmeal they'd bought.

"Hey, Raz. If we can find a deck of cards, d'you wanna play speed?"

"It's too early for this."

"Come on. It's just luck and reflexes. I know you aren't awake yet. I just need something to do."

"Whatever."

She searched through her dad's duffel until she found a deck of cards. His side of the family was really good at cards. All kinds, too: Speed, Spit, Poker, Gin Rummy, Wist, and all the other obscure card games. They wouldn't be separated from their cards, by golly!

As she shuffled and bent the cards back (she couldn't do a bridge yet) she started wishing she could use her psychic powers. She was seriously cold.

After two rounds of Speed and one round of Spit, her dad called for them to come out because the water was boiling.

They both poured a packet of instant oatmeal into the little plastic bowls, then some water, stirred it, poured orange juice for themselves (but didn't drink it – they were cold enough already) and finally, ate the oatmeal. Then they drank the (cold) juice, ate bananas, and cleaned up.

"After this, let's go back to get gloves." Truman was so smart. He could point out the obvious better than anyone else she knew…

"Okay! I'm done now. Let's go!"

When they got down to the car, they saw that ice had formed on all the class. Raz kind of shuddered, Lili started admiring the pretty, feathery patterns, and Truman already knew about the ice because he'd been down to the car earlier to get the food.

As they drove back to Lili's house, (the main rule of driving is that you listen to the driver's music. Lili was used to it, Raz didn't like it, and Truman enjoyed it, which is kind of obvious because it's his music) they watched the mountain slopes from the (now warm) car. Lili's feet were cold, especially her toes, and she was pretty sure the toes of her shoes were wet. Her hands were also cold, but they were warmer than her feet. Raz, as always, knew how to dress. He had a patched, but nevertheless working, down jacket that had obviously been used by many generations of Aquatos, two layers of pants, who-knew-how-many layers of socks, and good snow boots lined with goat wool. And thick gloves and a thick, hand-knit hat.

Well, wasn't he special.

They were back home. She was now absolutely sure her shoes were wet because she could feel it distinctly.

Her sister Jane (I guess this also goes with Pride and Psychicness) was out getting the morning paper when they got back.

"Oh, my gosh! That's so weird! I was just going out to get the paper and I didn't know you guys were… that's a really weird coincidence."

"Yeah, we came back to get some supplies. Like, gloves and stuff."

All three made their way up to the house (Raz had left his down jacket in the car) and Jane called out, "Mom! Everyone! Dad, Lili, and Raz are back!"

They were greeted within a few moments by Mrs. Zanotto, who asked them how camping had been, what it was like on the mountain, and things like that.

Raz told the story.

"Well, the first night, we went up to the summit and it snowed."

"It snowed!"

"Yeah. And it was really windy, too. So we ate our pizza in the observation room, but we couldn't see anything because we were inside a cloud. Then we went down to our campsite, and it had stopped raining so we pitched our tent. Then we set up everything. This morning there were feather patterns on the glass on the car, and everyone else was cold because they didn't think ahead, so we came back down."

"Yeah, way to make us feel dumb, Raz."

"Lili, you won't talk that way to our guest!"

"I'll talk however I want to my boyfriend!"

"Try that one more time and you're going to your room."

"Then I only get one round of fun. Oh, well."

She went to the room where a couple of her sisters were playing DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) against each other. She followed along on the carpet. Raz couldn't figure out how they could respond that fast. It as only Standard mode on Speed Over Beethoven.(That's the third-hardest level and a really fast song)

So he watched them. Then he got bored. He went outside to run around.

After a long time, after Lili and her sisters had played a round of Super Smash Bros., Melee with each other and Lili had done some fighting as Roy, the hottest (literally and in today's modern conception of "hot") character in the game, they headed back to Mt. Diablo where it was considerably warmer now that the sunlight was on that part of the mountain. The site was on the side of the mountain that the sun didn't rise on. Of course, that made for one heckuva sunset.

Now, armed with decent gloves and hats that they didn't need too much anymore, the trio dropped their stuff at the tent and drove to the parking lot in front of Juniper camp, where there was a beautiful view of the valley, Mt. Tamalpias (The Sleeping Maiden) and, of course, San Francisco Bay. And the delta of the combine San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers. Really good view of the bay, though.

They were going to hike up to the summit. Both guys knew they could keep up with whatever Lili wanted to do, so she got to lead on the narrow trail.

They hadn't even been going for a minute when they came upon their first distraction, which Lili was the first to actually point out.

It was a tree literally covered in some kind of moss that grew in a bunch of little parts that went straight out from the tree trunk.

"Whoa, pretty moss."

"It looks kind of like a fern."

"I would've said it was more like feathers."

"I looks like feathery ferns with fuzzy leaves." That last was hers. Of course.

Then she set off again.

They saw a bunch more trees coated in the same kind of moss, and Truman said that it was probably because of all the rain this year (It's extra rainy this year. Weird weather this winter, too.) and they went on hiking.

A long ways up the trail, they saw a little brown cotton-tailed rabbit. They all paused for awhile, until Raz got bored and said, "Boo!" just to care it. Lili smacked him. Truman didn't see.

They stopped to rest three or four times during their hike. Sometimes Lili would say how fast her heart was going.

"Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump…."

Then she'd get bored and start walking again.

"You know, this would be good for your mile times, because you have to lift your feet more than usual."

"Yeah, and we're at, like, 3,000 feet. This reminds me of sledding at Sugar Pine."

Don't ask me why Lili would be in Girl Scouts. I don't even want to know.

"Why?"

"Well, for sledding, you have to walk up a hill a bunch of times. The only difference is, we don't have sleds, we're only going up and down once, and we're only at that was at six thousand feet."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Then Truman said they'd be getting to a microwave tower soon.

Of course, Lili asked what the heck a microwave tower is.

"It'll probably be easier once we've gotten there."

"It'll pass the time."

"Well, they're big metal towers with big round sensors on it that pick up microwaves from other places. The waves have to be on a direct line of sight, so they put the towers up high."

Don't make the Psychonauts reference. Please. Plus, those are censors, not sensors. Sensors sense things. Censors weed out things that don't belong, or in other words, censor. When my dad said "microwave towers" I was thinking of microwave ovens and I was all, "what the heck!" but then when he said, "they pick up microwaves" I got it. Microwaves are tiny little waves of… well, if we're talking microwave ovens, little waves of radiation or electricity or something. I don't know what the microwave towers pick up.

"Oh, I get it now. Okay."

"And here's the microwave tower. See the sensors?"

They were hard to miss. They looked like metal versions of bass drums.

And little half-spheres. Whatever. Same difference. There were different kinds of sensors on the tower. The actual tower part was kind of like a bunch of metal rods in kind of the same pattern as those weird telephone poles, except it was square and way shorter.

That was where they started seeing snow on the ground.

The second time they saw snow, Raz threw a snowball right by Lili. A tiny little snowball, about ¾ of an inch around. Or, it would've been if it were round.

"Darn it, I missed!"

"So you've chosen to live dangerously. What was your target?"

"Well, my first target would've been anything that isn't you."

"So then how did you miss?"

"Well, my other target that I could've done would've been was you."

"Well, thank you for missing."

"You're welcome."

She smiled and started back up the mountain. They were almost to the summit…

After awhile, they got to a parking lot with some comfy-looking picnic tables, but they kept going until they were at the top of the big cement building at the summit.

They didn't go in the observation room again, but they did take the time to enjoy the view.

Then they went back down to that parking lot. There was snow on most of the tables, but on one of them, the snow was only on one side. They sat there and ate while they watched the ground steam.

Lili made a couple jokes about having a steamed peanut butter and honey sandwich.

Then they had some pita chips and looked for other stuff to do.

Truman found a little guide thingy for a walk around Mt. Diablo. They decided to do that.

Lili got to read it.

"Stop 1. These trees you see are oaks…"

They learned about two kinds of oaks, greenstone, (which is actually reddish brown) churt, yerba santa, and a bunch of other stuff. Raz learned about poison oak, (fortunately, not the itchy way) and they tried climbing a big churt rock, but they ended up not wanting to take that risk. Then Raz, show-off acrobat that he was, climbed it in only a couple seconds.

The end of the walk saw them back at the parking lot. They walked back down.

Truman liked annoying his daughters, so he said, "I saw the car first. I lost the game."

"I lost the game. You suck, dad."

"What game?"

"If I tell you the rules, you have to play it forever, okay?"

"Uh, I don't think I want to know anymore."

"Whatever."

"Hey, do you kids think you're up to a little more walking?"

"Sure."

Actually, her feet hurt a little. But she could stand a couple more minutes.

"There's a really good place for California poppies over on the trail near Juniper camp."

"Okay. Let's go."

Raz chose to be quiet. Weird.

After about five minutes or so, Lili's feet were really hurting. Then they found out that there actually weren't any poppies, except for three or four on the hillside. Oh, well. Too bad she wasn't using levitation. Her feet could really use it.

Eventually, they were back in the car. They went back to the tent, where they lazed for a couple hours, read, all that good stuff. Then they made dinner.

The risotto was no longer frozen, but they cooked it anyway and it was delicious. Then they made s'mores with the kindling and newspapers for firewood, boiled some water for coco, and went to sleep.

Lili woke up once during the night because of the wind thrashing at the tent. It kept her up for awhile, but she eventually got back to sleep.

In the morning, she and Raz switched off being weights to hold down the tent while stuff was being carried to and from the tent. Then they stuffed their sleeping bags into the little bags, rolled up their air mats, took down the tent, and drove home. They had breakfast at the Zanotto house. The oatmeal was good, but it was _cold_ on the mountain. They needed to be warm.

They drove home, had a good time, and Raz and Lili spent the rest of break together. The next day, after homework, they went biking. They both had an absolutely wonderful break.

Yeah, it's a sucky ending. But I really did go biking with my boyfriend yesterday. The whole camping trip was hilarious. I have a lot more respect for the Eskimos now. This wasn't even below zero…


End file.
